§ 6. THE TRANSFER OF THE PAPACY TO AVIGNON. 55
in favor of giving it a new trial and a fair chance to prove its innocence. But the kingwasmlentless. He reminded Clement that the guilt of the knights had been sufficiently proven, and insisted that the order be abolished. He appeared in person at the council, attended by a great retinue. Clement was overawed, and by virtue of .his apostolic power issued hj^ decree abolishing the Templars, March 22, 1312.^ Clement's reasons were that suspicions existed that the order held to heresies, that many of the Templars had confessed to heresies and other offences, that thereafter reputable persons would not enter the order, and that it was no longer necessary for the defence of the Holy Land. Directions were given for the further procedure. The guilty were to be put to death ; the innocent to be supported out of the revenues of the order. With this action the famous order passed out of existence. The end of Jacques de Molay^ the 22d and last grand-master of the order of Templars, was worthy of its proudest days. At the first trial he confessed to the charges of denying Christ and spitting upon the cross, and was condemned, but afterwards recalled his confession. His case was reopened in 1314. With Geoffrey de Charney, grand-preceptor of Normandy, and others, he was led in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Molay then stood forth and declared that the charges against the order were false, and that he had confessed to them under the strain of torture and instructions from the king. Charney said the same. The commission promised to reconsider the case the next day. But the king's vengeance knew no bounds, and that night, March 11, 1314, the prisoners were burned. The story ran that while the flames were doing their grewsome work, Molay summoned pope and king to meet him at the judgment bar within a yea^. The former died, in a little more than a month, of a loathsome di^-
1 Per viam provisionis seii ordinationis apostolicce is the language of the bull, that is, as opposed to de jure or as a punishment for proven crimes. This bull, Vox clamantis, was found by the Benedictine, Dr. Gams, in Spain, in 1865. See Hefele-Knopfler, VI. .52.5 sqq. It is found in Mirbt : Quellen, p. 149 sq. Clement asserts he issued the order of abolition " not without bitterness and pain of heart," non sine cordis amaritudine et dolore. Two other bulls on the Templars and the disposition of their property followed in May.
56 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
ease^ though penitent, as it was reported, for his treatment of the order, and the king, by accident, while engaged in the chase, six months latej. The king was only 46 years old at the time of his death, and 14 years after, the last of his direct descendants was in his grave^and the throne passed to the house of Valois.
As for the possessions of the order, papal decrees turned them over to the Knights of St. John, but Philip again intervened and laid claim to 260,000 pounds as a reimbursement for alleged losses to the Temple and the expense of guarding the prisoners.^ In Spain, they passed to the orders of San lago di Compostella and Calatrava. In Aragon, they were in part applied to a new order, Santa Maria de Montesia, and in Portugal to the Military Order of Jesus Christ, ordo militice Jesu Christi. Repeated demands made by the pope secured the transmission of a large part of their possessions to the Knights of St. John. In England, in 1323, parliament granted their lands to the Hospitallers, but the king appropriated a considerable share to himself. The Temple in London fell to the Earl of Pembroke, 1313.2
The, explanation of Philip's violent animosity and persistent persecution is his cupidij;y. He coveted the wealth of the Templars* Philip was quite equal to a crime of this sort. 3 He robbed the bankers of Lombardy and the Jews of
1 The wealth of the Templars has been greatly exaggerated. They were not richer in France than the Hospitallers. About 1300, the possessions of each of these orders in that country were taxed at 0000 pounds. See DoUinger, p. 267 sq. Thomas Fuller, the English historian, quaintly says, " Philip would never have taken away the Templars' lives if he might have taken away their lands without putting them to death. lie could not get the honey without burning the bees." The Spanish delegation to the Council of Vienne wrote back to the king of Aragon that the chief concern at the council and with the king in regard to the Templars was the disposition of their goods, Finke, I. 350, 374. Finke, I. Ill, 115, etc., ascribes a good deal of the animosity against the order to the revelations made by Esquin de Floyran to Jayme of Aragon in 1305. But the charges he made were already current in France.
2 In 1G09 the benchers of the Inner and Middle Temple received the buildings for a small annual payment to the Crown, into whose possession they had passed under Henry VIII.
8 Dante and Villani agree that the Templars were innocent. In this judgment""mosl modern historians concur. Funk declares the sentence of inno-